I really enjoyed taking the class and I hope I can give you some tips to make the class a little easier, and possibly even a little more fun.

This post is the first blog post because it was the last assignment due. The assignments are in order by the date that they were due.

I enjoyed making the weblog because I have some background experience in web design. If you don’t though this assignment could take a while. Since Dr. Fricke didn’t assign this project to be a time suck you can take simple steps to make the assignment quick and easy.

START PREPARING NOW Although I did not have any of the assignments ready to post, the first day of class I created a blog post for every assignment that I would have. While I would love to be able to say that I wrote posts as the class went along, I can’t. What I can say however is that simple steps such as taking notes and thinking about what you will write are all important preparatory steps.

BE CREATIVE Chances are you’ll be staring at your computer screen for several hours working on this project therefore it is important that you find a way to make it matter to you. I am going to be a high school English teacher so I thought it would be fun to use mine to practice offering advice on assignments.

DON”T WAIT TO LEARN Not only will it take a while to write each post but you can waste a lot of time it you do not know how to use WordPress. For example, no one wants to write a long post and then wonder where all their work went because they didn’t know they had to save before exiting. Dr. Fricke is more than willing to help you learn how to use WordPress and there are great help resources on the wordpress site. Don’t wait until the last minute though because there is a definite learning curve.

For those of you who are not sure about taking the class I would definitely recommend it. It is a great learning experience that can vastly improve your writing abilities. For those of you who are in the class, I hope that the rest of this blog inspires you while you are working on the different projects for ENGL 3365.

My group had several advantages that you should consider using. We had turned our report in for early grading so we had a good idea of our final grade. Each of our class grades were high enough that we were not worried about the presentation grade. We also knew that it was very unlikely for us to get a 100% and also very unlikely for us to get a C. This put our group in a great position. While we all worked hard on our slides we did not spend time practicing before the presentation.

TIP: Consider dressing up for the final presentation. Not only is it fun to look professional on occasion it may help your grade. Showing your other classmates that you took the assignment seriously enough to dress up may also translate to your classmates taking you seriously.

We used a slide show for the presentation. This did an excellent job of keeping us focused while we were speaking and moving the presentation along.

Group Presentation Slide Show

The hardest part of writing the report was deciding what order the topics should go in. I thought it might be useful to review what order my group decided to place them in and why. (I did not explain every category because I felt that some have an obvious explanation.)

Letter of Transmittal This is addressed to the recipient and gives them an idea of what they are reading and why. Our letter of transmittal reminded our audience why we were working on the project and also gave contact information.

Title Page

Table of Contents

Introduction Our introduction was similar to our letter of transmittal. It gives the audience a framework for the recommendation and introduces them ( obviously) to the report topics. Underneath Introduction we included the subheadings of Formatting and Evaluation Criteria. We felt that it was important to let our audience know about these two factors before they began reading the bulk of the recommendations.

Cooking Class/Sports/Field Trips This three topics were the recommendations which we made to the Maggie Trejo Center. Each recommendation begins with an introduction, then states the benefits, the costs, and ends with a summary and conclusion. It is important to format the report consistently so that your audience does not get confused.

Funding After introducing each of our recommendations to our audience we then covered funding options. This order was beneficial because we were able to refer back to our recommendations in the funding section instead of jumping ahead.

Conclusion

Appendix There were two pieces of extra information that the group collected that did nto fit into the report. The appendix is a useful spot to include extra information that assists your audience without breaking up your organized report structure.

TIP: Use a template! It will save you oodles of time because each group member will know what order the report will be in and what topics have been covered/ have not yet been covered. Without a template it will be far more likely that group members writing styles will not blend naturally.

Letter of Transmittal

Recommendation Report

My group situation was unique because we turned our recommendation report in early. Therefore, our progress report #2 was due two days before we finished our rough draft. I would definitely recommend turning the recommendation report in early.

Here are some ideas for different topics each group member could cover In the progress report. I covered our group meeting at the library, Nick covered the basic requirements of the assignment ( title, purpose, goal) and Ethan covered the preparation for our presentation.

TIP: You can save a lot of time if you take my suggestion and include a personal research area in the report. This urges group members to start thinking about how they will write their section of the report. That way when you go to write the report you can copy and paste what you have already written for the progress report. Yay, time saver!

Nick’s Report Katie’s Report Ethan’s Report

Make sure that everyone in the group has their own topic for the Progress Report. No one wants to read the same thing several times. Divide different topics that your group has been considering that week. For example, my group divided the work so that I talked about planning for formatting the document, Nick talked about visiting the Maggie Trejo Center, and Ethan talked about. After we each covered our part of the group effort that we were responsible for we also talked about the research we had been doing individually. This approach does a great job of covering lots of different topics without overwhelming any one member of the group.

TIP: Consider completing the group memos early so that other members of your group can review your work. This way more than one set of eyes covers each document. Your grade on the memo report will be low if your grammar or sentence mechanics are poor.

Nick’s Report Katie’s Report Ethan’s Report

I am an education minor and had the great opportunity to work at The Maggie Trejo Center in the Fall of ’07. I really liked working with the kids and enjoyed the time that I spent there. I chose this as organization that I wanted to work with because they are close, nonprofit, and were open to our project. I contacted Crystal Miro and she said that suggestions for cultural programs would be great.

We divided the assignment by establishing what cultural program each member would be in charge of. Ethan took field trips, I took the cooking class, and Nick took sports. I would suggest writing as much as possible separately. Writing collaboratively can often take more time. Thinking collaboratively, however, often saves time because it keeps everyone on the same page.

The group also decided at the beginning that we wanted to do well on the report. We planned to turn the report in early so that we could receive extra feedback and raise our grade.

TIP: Don’t settle for working on a project that you are not excited about. Not being enthusiastic about an idea will make the project less fun for you and will likely bring down the rest of the group as well. Instead, try and find your niche within the project. Keep yourself busy with the things that interest you or that you perform well at.

Group Report Work Plan

Try to think of elements that you feel you would be strongest at describing. For example, I am not an expert on grass or lawnmowers so I did not plan to include very much information about those aspects in my report. Instead, I thought I could do a great job of showing my client that I had spent a lot of time considering how we would mow their property. I described what we would mow and how (riding mower or trimmer). I drew small aerial pictures of the hypothetical property on graph paper.

TIP: Just because you do not know about a certain area, such as lawnmower brands, does not mean you cannot include it in the report. Instead of using details, you could instead explain in the report that if your client would like more information then they should contact you.

This is one of the longer projects, as well as one of the projects with the most impact on your grade. I definitely recommend turning this project in to Dr. Fricke for early grading. I have included links to the proposal report and the cover letter.

Mowing Proposal Report

Mowing Cover Letter

I think our group did a great job of using different stylistic changes to highlight important concepts for our audience. For example, we put “As a result of this price change we can now guarantee two day shipping for all orders.” centered and in italics. This is an important change that we wanted to highlight for our customer. We created a price change chart for our customer on a separate page. That way, customers could post a copy and easily reference it.

TIP:If there are elements that the book leaves out, think outside of the box. Use them to your advantage! For example, the book did not say whether there was a limit on shipping charges. In order to simplify our pricing chart, we decided to cap orders off at $100 for shipping charges. Any amount over that was free of shipping charges. That way, we were able to stop showing the price change at 99.00 instead of going on infinitely.

Shipping Increase Letter

1. I was consistent on each report. I explained the similiar information on the same part of the report throughout. Consistency allows the audience to quickly find information while they are reading and for reference later.
2. Records such as accident reports are important to keep, therefore, I kept each accident report on a separate page. This way my audience would have an easy time filing the information afterwards.

I kept the business aspects of the memo very simple. I did not include “office politics”, instead I created a hypothetical situation where the tires were faulty. I comforted my audience by explaining that the insurance company was taking action against the tire company for knowingly selling faulty tires. I suggested that our drivers take a driving course provided by the insurance company which would help keep our insure costs low. Overall, I think that the assignment was useful because it forces you to think about many different elements: the mechanical understanding of cars, mathematical calculations of cost, civil elements of law, and the social elements of business.

TIP: Whether a audience analysis sheet is required for the assignment or not, it is a useful tool for every assignment. The analysis sheet helped me find extra elements that i could add to the report that would be helpful to my audience, and increase my grade.

Trucking Incident Memo

Unfortunately, my first draft was very short and did not include all of the information that the book asked for. There were also several logical holes in my first Progress Email. For example, I did not consider what would happen if one of the nominees to the committee did not respond. This assignment taught me the importance of submitting a first draft for review. Submitting a first draft gives you two attempts at an assignment and your grade can drastically improve.

In my second draft I took the two issues Dr. Fricke addressed into consideration. I made sure that I included all of the information that the assignment required. I also described a plan for how different problems, such as an individual not responding, would be handled. Overall, the changes made my document far more helpful for my audience.

TIP: Make sure that you include all of the information that the book lists. Also make sure you take advantage of all of the information the book does not list. I was able to provide extra information, such as how individuals who did not respond would be handled, in order to make the e-mail as useful for my audience as possible.

Committee Progress Email Report